“I’d love to come and do your (adults MBSR) course one day, it would be so good for me, but do you have a course for my 9-year-old? ​

A mother's question?

Ping! Last week I received this message from a mum,

“I’d love to come and do your (adults MBSR) course one day, it would be so good for me, but do you have a course for my 9-year-old?

​There aren’t many mindfulness courses around for 9-year-olds. The ones I like the best are embedded in school curriculums, where teachers do a mindfulness course to manage their own stress before teaching mindfulness to kids.

When I teach the HeadRest in-school mindfulness program teachers often say, “as I become less stressed in the classroom my students also settle”. Sometimes the best option for a parent is to do a course themselves and as they reap the benefits and their parenting changes, their relationship with their children or even their kid's well being may begin to flourish.Parenting stressParenting and teaching are both rewarding and inevitably stressful. As a teacher, you go home at the end of the day but as a parent you have a lifelong role, one that keeps going even when your kids grow up and leave home. Even our commitment to wanting to do the job well can lead to stress as we question whether we are good enough.Parenting is non-stop change. When we give birth, we take on responsibility for another human being. How we spend our time, focus our energy and attention, and manage our finances are never the same again. With this change, we can lose track of what it means to care for ourselves and easily become stressed and irritable.As stress builds it is reflected in our behaviour. we are less able to enjoy and play with our children and more likely to be short tempered. Kids recognise our shortness and react to us, often with poor behaviour – to which we react further. This is a cycle that every parent knows. Stress gets in the way of our capacity to parent in a way that we are comfortable with.We may go to parenting courses for tips parenting or our children’s behaviour. Whilst many of these courses are excellent and it can be very hard to take on what we are learning if we’re highly stressed.

Do you know that experience of feeling worse because you know what you should be doing, but are not doing it? I certainly do.Mindful Parenting: how a mindfulness course can help.A very good mindfulness course can provide a different path into easier parenting in high-stress times. A mindfulness course is not about changing behaviour but about finding a way to touch base with whatever is happening and relate to it differently. You’ll learn meditation practices and engage in activities and discussions to support this process. A mindfulness course won’t change the source of the stress - a difficult behaviour in a child, a stressful separation, a sense of being stretched too thin but you might find that these things start to be experienced in an easier way, and the perhaps to change, as you move through the course. A couple of years ago I ran a mindful parenting course in a community centre in Lakemba but funding for these courses is sparse. A good second choice is to attend a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction course. MBSR is a well-established program with a very solid research base demonstrating significant benefits in stress reduction (link). Whilst is it can be useful to dip your toe into any aspect of mindfulness practice, perhaps through a book or an app, a longer course like MBSR allows time for new habits to be learned and change to unfold. Giving yourself 8-weeks to learn self-care can be like having a lovely long bath.

Stories from parentsMany parents attend MBSR coursesto care for themselves and enhance their relationship with their children. Judy had been going through a difficult protracted divorce and was often irritable and angry with her young children. She found their behaviour intolerable when they returned from visits with their dad. After 8-weeks she said, “I’m more present, less snappy, enjoy the kids more and they are enjoying me”. Judy said that spending time on her mindfulness practice meant she had more quality time with her kids, not less. Greg came because his wife and teenage daughter told him he was too angry and unpleasant much of the time. He was very sceptical at the beginning of the course. At the end of the 8-weeks, he said, “I’m still sceptical but my family tell me I’m easier to live with”. He thought he might do another course in the future. Tao found he could not leave work at work and that he wasn’t really present when he came home. He threw himself into the course and after 8- weeks found a gentle way to be more of the person he wanted to be for himself and those he cared about.How to find a HeadRest MBSR course If you’re interested in knowing more about MBSR hop on to our website. Our next courses begin Aug 8, 2018. I’ll be teaching the course and am an accredited counsellor and MBSR teacher. I am also a registered Circle of Security Trainer and have postgraduate family therapy training.If you coordinate a community centre and would like to explore hosting a mindful parenting course or teach in a school and would like to support your teachers with a NESA accredited in-school teacher training feel free to contact us and we can discuss your options.

Disclaimer: Please note that none of the people described in this article really exist. The things they have said are reak, but the quotes are often composite quotes and their names have all been changed.

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Tienne Simons is a therapist and the founder of HeadRest Mindfulness training. She did her training in MBSR when she became convinced that the program was not only a useful add on to therapy for many but sometimes a more appropriate way to support people than counselling. She has had a mindfulness practice for about 30 years- well nearly!